allanp

I think autovalves (combined valve and compressor from one motor) are good for small models, but for larger models more pumps are needed, so better to have a dedicated motor for a larger multi-pump compressor. But at this point I'd be happy for any pneumatic set!

If you are using a motor pump for the pneumatics it would be interesting to see what difference pump speed/RPMs make, as well as what difference the number of pumps make. Pressure and flow are not the same, but as pressure is a resistance to flow, by increasing flow to a certain point of resistance pressure goes up. In the case of RPMs it could be that at higher RPMs it's harder for the pump to suck in air on the pull stroke, decreasing air flow and pressure. Or it could be that at higher RPMs you get more power from trying to push air past the seals at a higher rate. In my experience the latter is true, you get more power from higher RPMs but I haven't tested this scientifically. I prefer increasing air flow rates (and thereby increasing pressure) by using more pumps to minimise wear on the pump.

Unfortunately I'm pretty sure these first generation cylinders are glued together. However the top seal doesn't need to be airtight because they are only single acting (there is no top seal) so you don't need to worry too much about damaging it, and you'll have to glue it back together anyway.

But the complaint I have with the Chiron is that the gearbox was TOO complicated (as well as the colour vomit and soft suspention). If gearboxes were more mechanically authentic they would actually be far easier and simpler for everyone to understand.

I think it's fine. Remember sets like 8868 and 8865 used a 28:14 gearing on their differentials, this new diff is much stronger and I actually prefer the slightly faster engine speeds you get from that (8868 had a further 3:1 up gearing so the engine was nice and fast!). If there are issues then the issue is coming from the gearbox, not the diff.

Me on the phone to Technic design team (in my imagination!) Hahahaha, OK guys you've had you're fun. Now show us the real flagship for 2020!........ Guys?........ Wait a minute, you're being serious aren't you! Um, are you feeling okay? Yes I know control+ isn't getting much love from the community but....... Well because the app STILL doesn't allow for MOCcing, you have two motor with near identical speed and torque outputs, it's very expensive, you can't stack cables, it..... OK well what if we tell you exactly what we want? No of course we won't complain no matter what you do, well some of us will but..... No no no, just give us an amazing new pneumatic flagship and.... No it's not dead! Yes you can make it RC if you absolutely must. Just don't substitute mechanical realism and authenticity for making it RC like you always do, you can have both! Well no, I wouldn't say 42114 is bad, It's worse. The worst in fact! I just don't see a flagship here. But it only has 3 rather simple functions, doesn't offer anything that we couldn't already do or a new, more elegant way of doing anything. I bet the box doesn't even have a flip up lid! Oh come on now, don't pretend I'm wrong! What happened? Did you have another flagship in the works but it wasn't ready in time so you had to quickly rush some other thing together? Oh! I wasn't expecting that! That's a really interesting thing you just told me! Ok, so you promise you'll be OK and back on your feet next year? Well you're an old friend and when I see you not at your awesome best I can't help but be worried. OK friend. Take care and get better for next year, I still have faith in you. Yes I know that AFOLs aren't the biggest market but you can say the same for Star wars, Disney or Pixar, and they would be fools to let their quality and appeal slip below the standards and expectation of their adult fans. Well no I don't have an answer for why Disneys latest Staw Wars and live action remake garbage still made billions actually but Solo was a flop and..... Yes I know we AFOLs can be a tough lot to please but...... Yes yes I know we keep saying the Arocs was the best, and even Marcus agreed but...... Yeah we may have already built it all, own it all and done it all, but with new parts there's still so much more new stuff that you could do that we can't, like leaf springs and a proper helicopter swash plate and....... No, a re-coloured wheel arch from the defender is not my idea of innovative! Hello? Hello?!!!!

While the rest of 2020 doesn't seem so good (although the Ducati motorbike sounds promising) I am soooooooooooo happy the the next UCS is a Lambo. My favourite is the Aventador but I don't know much about the Sian, and from the picture above it looks gorgeous! If they do a weird one off colour then I hope it's something worth doing a weird one off colour for, like a nice, metallic green like in the picture above or something. If not then I hope it's a regular colour that we already have a lot of parts in, so not purple!!!! Whilst the Landrover defenders green colour works well for the Landrover, I don't think it would look good on a Lambo. On the more Technical aspects, both the Porsche and the Chiron brought something new to gearboxes as far as official sets are concerned. I'm hoping for something new here also. Didn't someone mention that the Ducati motorbike has a proper shock absorber? Could they possibly find their way into the Lambo also as a way of helping with the UCS cars suspension issues, depending on how hard they are? I think the Porsche and the Chiron also brought us new wheel hubs (the black ones from the Claas in the Porsche and integrated brake disks in the Chiron). I wonder if this trend will continue also, perhaps using the new CV joints from 42099 to get a better steering angle? The Porsche and the Chiron are both great but also with room for improvement (mostly the gearboxes being unrealistic and the suspension) so I'm looking forward to seeing what improvements have been made. And also, it does seem now like the UCS car line is strictly for supercars only. I am thrilled that they are doing a Lambo which for me is the best! But I do hope they allow for something other than a supercar sometime in the future. There are so many iconic cars (like the Landrover) that aren't supercars that could really benefit from the UCS treatment. But is it now too late for that now that the first three UCS cars are all supercars? Was it always the intent that they all be supercars? Whilst I would love to see some UCS non supercars I wonder now if that would in some way damage the line as a whole.

Never heard of pneunatics before, but I'm gonna say pneumatics rulez!!!!!

It's not often Jang does Technic reviews but he seems to really like this set. After the news of the 2020 sets has come out we need more pneumatic sets!

One other potential difference is that the Lambo might have a gearbox that's kinda realistic!

Trying to stay optimistic for a nice surprise here but, um, hopes are fading rapidly. It doesn't matter that the rumour of a backhoe was false. I learnt from the Porsche not to let too high expectations ruin an otherwise pretty good reality. But a helicopter with no cyclic or collective control, a flagship with no realism or complexity (apart from maybe the final drive to the wheels), a cement truck which doesn't do much, surely these are first half sets right? Except with second half prices and piece counts. I don't really see the reason behind these. All these sets with all these features and complexity's could have packaged in much smallerand cheaper sets if control+ wasn't there. Maybe the Lamborghini has some nice surprises inside. It's too early to know for sure but right now it seems like the Lambo is my only hope left of a Lego purchase this year.

Still waiting on pictures to pass judgment but maybe horizontal motor is a thin, flat servo to connect directly to a pneumatic valve, which would also explain why there's 5 motors as you would need a compressor. Or am I just dreaming again?!

Technic do have a few electric vehicles, like the volvo zeux 42081. But the majority are the regular combustion engine powered variety, which TBH is I think how it should be. Technic should represent the real world by mostly having regular powered vehicles with a few electric concept vehicles hear and there, oh and of course a flagship RC/pneumatic forklift which could be electric!

Very true. Plus not many toys are turning children into the engineers that will help the planet.

I think the concern from plastics is the single use plastics (disposable straws, disposable cutlery, plastic bags and so on) as they usually end up in landfill or the ocean. I don't regard Lego as being single use.

For the recent Mars eurobricks Technic competition I had this idea for a worm like robot that could be sent to Mars. The fake story/concept is that it would be able to just dig and dig and dig and just keep going and eventually find liquid water under the surface. Because the pressure would be high underground all that water would be jetted out of the hole dug by the mechanical worm generating a new atmosphere over thousands of years and we would then make it a second Earth. But it didn't get beyond an idea. Is that more of the kind of idea or discussion you was after? But instead of colonising other planets, using our combined engineering minds and imaginations to come up with radical machines and concepts that would help improve this planet?

That is interesting. Remember that the term "backhoe" is a shortening of the full name of backhoe loader. The backhoe is referring to the rear digging arm and the loader is the large front shovel. Doing a google search for loader reveals nothing but 42030 type machines and I think it's highly unlikely that we'll get a flagship one of those so soon after 42030. So is this more evidence towards a backhoe or am I just dreaming?! A Lamborghini is also very interesting if true. Of all the supercars and hypercars I think a Lambo is the one that most looks like a supercar, which might actually be because of 8880! I am also really hoping that "air" is a new, big-ish helicopter with proper cyclic/collective controls and so on. This could be a VERY exciting 2nd half! But as always at this time of year, let not too high expectations ruin our experience of reality!

As much as I disagree with many of your points I am still grateful to be able to read a considered response, but I won't be turning this topic into the comments section of youtube! So with much respect we shall agree to disagree.

Warning, long environmental, not very Lego related post ahead! Well I do agree that climate change is an important issue, and if the chance of future climate catastrophe is only small, that's still enough to do something about it, why take the chance on such devastating consequences. But where I disagree with many of the green activists is pretty much everything else, such as who is to blame and what to do about it and so on. For as long as Earth has had a climate there has been climate change. The climate is a dynamic thing and looking at long term numbers (overs millions of years) we have actually been very lucky to have had a few thousand years of climate stability. No real hot regions (the climate was hotter when we had dinosaurs) and no ice ages. If we get climate change now, is it really a surprise? Is it mans fault? And does that even matter? To me what matters is what we can do about it. To me the biggest, most important thing is to get everyone on board, and so far many green initiatives have done a pretty poor job of doing that IMHO. Take tax cuts for electric vehicles for example. New electric cars are pretty expensive and can only be afforded by the well off. But tax cuts aren't free, everyone else has to make up the difference by raising taxes across the board or cutting services. So now everyone, including the less well off masses pays to help more well off people buy a new electric car. Wealthy land owners get paid more government money to have wind turbines and fuel and energy prices increase for us less well off to pay for more wind turbines. All this giving to the rich by taking from the poor seems to be the norm when it comes to green initiatives. They now also have these clean air zones where they charge you money to drive into the city centre, so now only the well off can afford to work there. They are also talking about car sharing, so you wouldn't own your own car but you just hop into which ever one is free and drive off! That is surely not the way to get everyone on board the green electric band wagon. So I say, lets do this in a way that mutually beneficial to both the planet and our wallets. Get rid of tax incentives for electric cars and instead make electricity so abundant and cheap that people really want to go electric, forcing car manufactures into putting more research into better and cheaper battery tech, enabling us to continue to own our own cars with the range and freedom to go wherever we want, heat our homes with electricity rather than by burning natural gas while also reducing our energy bills. This I believe is best done right now by building more nuclear. It's green, one of the safest forms of energy (believe it or not!) and most importantly, both massively powerful and consistent. The problem with wind and solar is that you need backup energy sources when there's no wind or sun. Back up energy sources need to be able to come online quickly which limits you to those energy sources that burn fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal, etc). Which means wind and solar comes with those types of energy generation and all the problems and pollution that comes with them, and not many people seems to realise that. In the long term there is a lot of research being done into cold fusion tech (you know, that tech that gets enough energy to power a city from a glass of water type of thing). They have done it but on a very small scale and needs more power putting in than you get out but it is possible. Once they figure out how to make the reaction self sustaining they are pretty much there. All the benefits of nuclear power without the waste. It might take 50 years but which ever country cracks that will likely be the next biggest super power, so worth the investment? Pretty much yeah. So far I've only talked about electricity, but there's so much more, for example there is an Idea I first heard from Hugh Ross about incentivising those nations that boarder the Sahara desert into replanting it (shrinking it so to speak, maybe even getting rid of it entirely and creating one of the largest forests on Earth) in return for us helping to boost their economy. Again, this will take generations to do, but that just means we better get started! The thing is, I'm really quite annoyed with much of the current green movement (extinction rebellion, Greta and so on). They speak with a belief and perceived authority that to disagree with anything they say is to be an intellectually and morally inferior climate change denialist, and that we should be shamed into following everything they say. I'm sorry but such arrogance just doesn't work on most people. Just like blaming Trump for everything doesn't work either. Besides, you know those controlled burns that they used to have in Australia? Those are burns that are deliberate and are done to prevent the spread of wildfires. Well it was the green "experts" that banned those. Now the Australian wild fires have released an estimated 900 million tons of CO2, doubling Australia's CO2 output for the entire year. But what can Lego do? I'm not really sure. Their plastic bricks are as for from single use as you can get, their instructions and boxes are recyclable and sourced from forests that probably wouldn't exist if they wasn't planted to be cut down and used as paper in the first place, and the bags the bricks come in seem so insignificant, it's not like we see scenes of plastic pollution like shopping bags, plastic single use straws intermingled with millions of those little bags that Lego bricks come in. Maybe they could invest in relatively small very local green energy infrastructure projects like hydro power in return for not having any electricity bills for their production facilities. Or they could have green energy educational sets that really do educate children about all the positives and the negatives of various forms of green energy (remember the fact that wind and solar need fossil fuel back up) and nuclear should be included in that. Yes we can heal the world but we need to pull together. Just like the false dichotomy they tried to invent between science and faith, I don't see this happening when the climate agenda is held hostage by those so arrogant as to not accept, and even be offended by the very existence of an opposing point of view.

I wonder if the new valve for the harvester was just something they thought would be cool to release (which is cool!) or if they had a future model in mind for it, like they knew there would be a model that had to have a lot of valves so they released this new valve which can be stacked closer together. If the rumour of a backhoe is true it wouldn't surprise me if it was in development since 42080 was also in development as they are rather tricky to get right.

I think it's mostly a trade show for toy sellers, not journalists or the public. However most other toy manufacturers seem to enjoy the extra free publicity from the journalists that happen to be there. Lego is perhaps different in the fact that they don't really need the free publicity and may actually lose more by revealing their upcoming designs to counterfeiters. That's my thoughts from someone on the outside looking the wrong way!

I think the rumour was that air was a helicopter using wheel arches as a sort of cowling round the rear rotor. Of course time will tell.

Well most of the rumour was correct.

At the risk of derailing this topic into another argument about the lack of b-models (I really don't want to do that guys and gals), I just want to say that this is a nice way to still have b-models for those sets where it's deemed otherwise not economically viable or possible for whatever reason. Weather it's just for fun or not you deserve some little extra from TLG for adding extra value to their product. Truck looks aggressive and it's very nice to see some live axle suspension action ?

I didn't know bionicle was so important. Thanks for a rather interesting tidbit So it seems starwars doesn't even have saving Lego going for it . I've tried the peroxide thing, didn't get very good results but living in the UK you don't get many days of sun!